Jill Welty- A journey is not the destination, but how we get there!
Week Two (Nov 2-8): Creation of a WIKI space and the Digital Learner!
The 21st Digital Learner was a very interesting, yet true article! It made me realize just how much our students are not involved in their own education. Teachers and educators don't even listen to what students think about how they are taught. We should be encouraging students to have their own views on their education and plan a curriculum around what interests them. It is ironic how the article compares our students to how we treated women before suffrage ... no one had a voice. Should our students get a voice?
I believe a good majority of our students are bored with their current education. The digital learner loves to create, solve, and communicate and we are still teaching our students with worksheets and overheads. I do not think we are addressing the needs of our children for the future workforce. Most students spend their nights on the computer or playing video games. They are doing more critical thinking and problem solving at night then they are at school. As teachers we need to get on board and listen to our students voices they tell a big story.
The article, Connecting to the 21st Century Student, addresses the needs to shift from students consuming media to being the creators of media. I found it interesting that most students spend 6 hours of their day using electronic media such as: social networking, texting, gaming, laptop use, and PDAs. This is more than they watch T.V., which means they are collaborating and communicating longer outside of school than when they are in school! It is going to take a lot for educators to loosen the reigns as far as technology goes. The rules will have to loosen to allow for full use of technology in schools.
For me, the most important part of this week is learning from others and how I can improve my teaching with these new tools. I am looking forward to trying to set-up a wiki for my kids to participate in and maybe attempt to create one for themselves. The hard part is most of these wiki sites require an email to register and my students do not have access to email. Any ideas?
How can we help each other as a group of teachers to get to our goal with 21st century learning? I was pleasantly surprised with the Needs Assessment survey in that the majority of us know how to use the new tools, but we do not use them in the classroom. Why is this? Are the barriers too much for schools to handle? Where will the funding come from to help these problems?
.... more questions to come and hopefully be answered throughout our journey ...
Jill Welty- A journey is not the destination, but how we get there!
Week Two (Nov 2-8): Creation of a WIKI space and the Digital Learner!
The 21st Digital Learner was a very interesting, yet true article! It made me realize just how much our students are not involved in their own education. Teachers and educators don't even listen to what students think about how they are taught. We should be encouraging students to have their own views on their education and plan a curriculum around what interests them. It is ironic how the article compares our students to how we treated women before suffrage ... no one had a voice. Should our students get a voice?
I believe a good majority of our students are bored with their current education. The digital learner loves to create, solve, and communicate and we are still teaching our students with worksheets and overheads. I do not think we are addressing the needs of our children for the future workforce. Most students spend their nights on the computer or playing video games. They are doing more critical thinking and problem solving at night then they are at school. As teachers we need to get on board and listen to our students voices they tell a big story.
The article, Connecting to the 21st Century Student, addresses the needs to shift from students consuming media to being the creators of media. I found it interesting that most students spend 6 hours of their day using electronic media such as: social networking, texting, gaming, laptop use, and PDAs. This is more than they watch T.V., which means they are collaborating and communicating longer outside of school than when they are in school! It is going to take a lot for educators to loosen the reigns as far as technology goes. The rules will have to loosen to allow for full use of technology in schools.
For me, the most important part of this week is learning from others and how I can improve my teaching with these new tools. I am looking forward to trying to set-up a wiki for my kids to participate in and maybe attempt to create one for themselves. The hard part is most of these wiki sites require an email to register and my students do not have access to email. Any ideas?
How can we help each other as a group of teachers to get to our goal with 21st century learning? I was pleasantly surprised with the Needs Assessment survey in that the majority of us know how to use the new tools, but we do not use them in the classroom. Why is this? Are the barriers too much for schools to handle? Where will the funding come from to help these problems?
.... more questions to come and hopefully be answered throughout our journey ...
.... and the journey continues....